Slashdot Mirror

ectoman writes "Patent reform is becoming an unavoidable issue — and the United States Congress is taking note. But the scope and scale of the problem have prompted multiple legislative solutions, and keeping track of them all can be rather difficult. Mark Bohannon, Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Global Public Policy at Red Hat, provides an overview of four important legislative actions currently under consideration, offering clear and concise analysis of their goals and provisions. He also assesses their potential impacts. 'Given the widening attacks by PAEs [Patent Assertion Entities],' Bohannon concludes, 'it is essential that Congress work to produce meaningful legislation on at least the issues identified above in order to begin to stem the tide.'"

ectoman writes "This week, advocates of open access to publicly funded research are keeping an eye on California's Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act (AB 609), which could soon find its way to the California State Senate. The bill requires the final copy of any peer-reviewed research funded by California tax dollars to be made publicly accessible within 12 months of publication. If passed, the legislation would become the first state-level law mandating this kind of access. Opensource.com is featuring a collection of articles on open access publishing, which you can read while you await the verdict on AB 609."

First time accepted submitter ectoman writes "A third party steps into a financial transaction to make sure all parties exchange funds at the same time and as expected. Can you patent this process? What if the third party is a computer? Rob Tiller, vice president and general counsel for Red Hat, details a recent court ruling on this very matter—one that has critical implications for the future of software patents, and one that divided the judges involved. Tiller writes that: 'The judges mostly agreed that the idea of managing settlement risk with a third party was abstract such that by itself it could not be patented. They differed, though, on whether using a general purpose computer for managing settlement risk meant that the patents avoided invalidity based on abstraction.' Interestingly, some judges suggested that a computer becomes a 'new machine' every time it loads different software."

First time accepted submitter Jason Hibbets writes "Ubermix is a version of Linux designed for kids and educators. In this interview with Jim Klein, founder of Ubermix, we discover a Linux distribution designed with kids, education, and educators in mind. This could change the way our the next generation learns about Linux and open source software like Celestia, Stellarium, Scratch, VirtualLab Microscope, iGNUit, and more."

First time accepted submitter Jason Hibbets writes "Ubermix is a version of Linux designed for kids and educators. In this interview with Jim Klein, founder of Ubermix, we discover a Linux distribution designed with kids, education, and educators in mind. This could change the way our the next generation learns about Linux and open source software like Celestia, Stellarium, Scratch, VirtualLab Microscope, iGNUit, and more."

Phil Shapiro isn't famous, but he's a pretty good writer whose work appears regularly at opensource.com. He makes his living as the tech support person (he calls it "public nerd") at the Takoma Park Maryland Library. He has also -- see the link to his bio page above -- lived in New Delhi, India; Copenhagen, Denmark; Paris, France; and Scarsdale, New York. He got started with Linux as a "social justice" thing; because Linux and FOSS helped make it possible for people of modest means (we used to just call them "poor") to learn about computers and get on the Internet. He's still a big "computer for the masses" advocate and computer rehab volunteer. What's especially interesting about this interview (which is slightly out of sound/visual synch; you may prefer reading the transcript) is the amount of credit Phil gives Slashdot for spurring him on and getting him excited about FOSS. He also sees Slashdot as instrumental in helping start the Maker subculture. Do you agree? If so, should influencing the future of technology be Slashdot's main mission? Also: If so, how do you suggest we do it? And more specifically, do you know any other non-famous Slashdot readers (or people in general) we should talk to because they are doing interesting things?

caseyb89 writes "Open source projects Nginx, Railo CMS, and GlusterFS are powering Mars Curiosity's big data crunching. 'Taken together, the combination of cloud and open source enabled the Curiosity mission to provide beautiful images in real time, not months delayed; at high quality, not "good enough" quality. A traditional, proprietary approach would not have been this successful, given the short time to deployment and shifting requirements that necessitated the ultimate in agility and flexibility.'"

caseyb89 writes "If it weren't for open source technology, you wouldn't be able to tweet. Chris Aniszczyk, Open Source Manager at Twitter, shares how open source is vital to Twitter's success. He states that using open source is a 'no-brainer' for Twitter because it 'allows us to customize and tweak code to meet our fast-paced engineering needs as our service and community grows.' Twitter also established an open source office about a year ago to support a variety of open source organizations that are important to them. Aniszczyk will discuss Twitters open source usage in his keynote at LinuxCon."

caseyb89 writes "Hacker Highschool is an after school program that teaches students the best practices of responsible hacking. The program is open source, and high schools across the country have begun offering the free program to students. Hacker Highschool recognized that teens are constantly taught that hacking is bad, and they realized that teens' amateur understanding of hacking was the cause of the biggest issues. The program aims to reverse this negative stereotype of hacking by encouraging teens to embrace ethical, responsible hacking."

First time accepted submitter caseyb89 writes "Beat making software is incredibly expensive, and the high price limits usage to those who can afford it. Two professors at UNC have a dream of allowing all artists access to beat making software, regardless of income level. They are rallying the community on a project to create open source beat making software. The two professors double as DJs and hip hop artists, and they recently spoke at Rio+Social."

First time accepted submitter caseyb89 writes "Beat making software is incredibly expensive, and the high price limits usage to those who can afford it. Two professors at UNC have a dream of allowing all artists access to beat making software, regardless of income level. They are rallying the community on a project to create open source beat making software. The two professors double as DJs and hip hop artists, and they recently spoke at Rio+Social."

antdude points out this article at opensource.com on the "graveyard" of digital rights management schemes — the death of each of which has left customers out in the cold. An excerpt: "There are more than a few reasons digital rights management (DRM) has been largely unsuccessful. But the easiest way to explain to a consumer why DRM doesn't work is to put it in terms he understands: 'What happens to the music you paid for if that company changes its mind?' It was one thing when it was a theoretical question. Now it's a historical one ..."

paulproteus writes "Most computer science students never see a bug tracker, and very few learn about version control. Classes often don't teach the skills needed for participation. So I organized a weekend workshop at the University of Pennsylvania. Total newbies enthusiastically spent the day on IRC, learned git, built a project from source, and read bugs in real projects. I learned that there's no shortage of students that want to get involved."

pevans writes "Over on Red Hat's Opensource.com I found this neat summary of a few old laws that could really help us today with the patent trolls. The article 'What's wrong with champerty?' is brief, but full of legal goodness that seems to have fallen by the wayside: 'Let's bring back barratry, maintenance, and champerty for patent lawsuits. Combine that with a limitation on the assignment of patents and a lot of patent trolls would be out of business. ...do patents have to be freely assignable? And why can't we prohibit a cause of action for patent infringement where there is no net gain to society?"